In a few minutes the calm waters in front of the Carducci home were invaded by a couple of jet skis that were jumping and doing stunts over each other’s wake. They went north and suddenly turned into the harbor and headed for the dock at full speed. They did serpentines and tight circles and generated all the necessary alarms among the security detail of the house. Armed guards appeared from nowhere and waved the intruders away. The jet-skiers ignored them, knowing that the guards would not shoot at some rambunctious and probably drunk kids. They circled the harbor once more and then headed towards the beach in front of the house. The guards converged to the front that faced the beach so that they could make sure the jet skiers did not to go beyond the public area.
The FBI and SPD “beachgoers” went towards the intruders but could not interdict them as no law had been broken; the waters of the harbor were considered public, as was the beach where they were now. Suddenly a third jet ski appeared and entered the harbor at full speed. It circled the tight area twice and slowed in front of the docks. Now the guards that were up front turned their attention to this third intruder, who again turned away and circled the harbor at full speed. In the meantime the ones that had gone onto the beach returned to their jet skis and joined the third one. At the same time as this was happening the skiff returned and headed for the dock. The jet skis played around at the entrance of the harbor and the beach in front of the house, keeping the attention of the guards on them. Little attention was given to the skiff or its passengers. They saw “Pete” tie the skiff to the dock and help the houseguest out. Everything normal there, and then the jet-ski trio entered the harbor again and continued carousing without paying any attention to the guards that kept shouting and signaling them to leave. Then, as fast as they arrived, they left and headed south along the beach. Everyone kept their eyes on them until they disappeared. Nobody noticed the angler and his guide enter the guest quarters.
M&M could do nothing but follow the man’s instructions; the knife at his ribs was quite eloquent in that respect. He walked ahead at a normal pace, ignoring the jet skis and the guards that were trying to shoo them away and went directly to the guest quarters. They were empty, as Manning would only arrive later.
As they crossed the threshold Testa hit M&M behind the ear with the knife wielding hand and knocked him out. He gagged and bound him with plastic ties, and then he turned on the light and went to the closet, chose a shirt, and tried on a pair of shorts. They were loose but they would do; the shoes were too small so he had to go barefoot. He searched the place for weapons but found nothing, and then he walked out of the guesthouse and nonchalantly walked towards the pool area. There he saw Marco doing laps and Matilde setting table with the help of one of the bodyguards. He waited in the shadows for his chance. He needed Marco and the woman together so he could strike once and for all. If he did not survive the guards it wouldn’t matter. Everything was in God’s hands after he killed the pair.
Major Allan had received the heads-up on the jet-skiers that had invaded the Carducci harbor and had immediately gone to see the CCTV cameras of the area, but by the time he saw them, they were on the way out; it looked like it was just a bunch of crazy kids getting the last blast of the day. The skiff was docking and the occupants were getting off. All was normal, he ordered the guards back to their posts and told them to keep their eyes open. He was thinking about some way to close the harbor entrance so that this did not happen again. As he walked back to his office, there was something about the incident that bothered him. Something he saw that was skewed, so he decided to go back to the operations room and see the playback on the big screen.
Marco got out of the pool, toweled himself dry, and went to his room to get ready for dinner. He heard nothing of the commotion created by the jet-skiers and had his mind on Patricia, who at this moment should be naked in the shower, a thought that brought love and lust to his heart. With new spirits he climbed the stairs a little faster, his step younger. When he got to the huge suite he saw the bathroom open and heard the shower running, still time to join Patricia was the thought. From behind him, silent as a jaguar in the night, Enrico Testa approached Marco with one of the cord saws stretched taught between his hands. He had successfully followed Marco without anyone seeing him and he would now kill him quietly and then take care of the woman in the bathroom. He knew her name was Patricia Lujan but could only think of her as “the woman.”
As Testa moved his hands to wrap the improvised garrote around Marco’s neck and with one swift pull cut his throat down to the bone, Patricia appeared in the doorway wrapped in a towel that she held up with one hand. The sight of her made Testa hesitate for just an instant, enough for Marco to drop like a stone, leaving Testa to catch nothing but hair on the very top of his head and just miss getting scalped by the tense wire. Testa could not take his eyes off Patricia. She had dropped the towel and in combat stance was heading towards him. Marco rolled on the floor trying to get out of reach and when Testa went for him, Patricia went for Testa. She took two steps and jumped, coiling into a ball away from where feet and hands would shoot out with lethal force. Testa was forced back away from Marco to confront the attack. He bent backwards and let Patricia fly by him but she still managed to rabbit-punch him in the sternum as she went by. The punch hit him exactly in the ribs that she had broken during their short skirmish on the Toscana. Roaring with pain and fury, the Sword of God moved in a windmill of punches and kicks towards Patricia, who was already back in her stance.
She blocked his punches with forearms and hands while jumping up on the bed to avoid his kick. She landed one good kick to his chin and Testa flew backwards to be halted by the wall. He used it to catapult back and punched Patricia on the upper thigh before she could defend. The impact was brutal and sent shards of pain in all directions, but the worst was the numbness that slowed her down. She had only one option. Go to ground with the man. There Krav Maga would give her an advantage. She waited for his attack, which came in the form of a high kick aimed at her head. She raised her hand and forced the foot to pass over her head, and with her open hand she went for his testicles, but there was nothing there. She grabbed the shorts and twisted, pushing herself as best she could with her good leg and sent Testa to the ground. She went to jump on him with two elbows ready when Marco fell on the man, doing exactly the same maneuver that she had taught him.
Both of Marco’s elbows hit Testa on his chest and abdomen, but the lack of expertise in this form of combat softened the impact and Testa was up before Marco could get hold of him. Testa was now in a full combat state of mind. These people were not easy to kill and he respected enemies who could hold their own; but God wanted them dead and he would not leave until his will was done. Testa knew that the real opponent here was the woman. Carducci could hold his own but wasn’t really a problem; he had to deal with her first.
Testa feigned an attack at Marco and turning in the same motion sent his body flying towards Patricia, who had returned to a defensive stance when she anticipated his attack. She was ready for him but the sheer difference in mass favored the priest. They both fell to the ground, taking Patricia’s dresser with them. Again Patricia kneed Testa in the balls and again found no reaction. The man had been totally castrated. She curled into a ball, knowing the two fisted attack that would come and the readiness that it would give her to counterattack the aggressor. Nothing happened. Testa was wriggling around and making horrible noises. Marco stood behind him, pulling hard on the garrote while Testa with his fingers on the wire tried to avoid being decapitated.
“Don’t kill him, Marco,” shouted Patricia while she roundhouse kicked the monsignor, hitting him with her heel on the left temple. The bone around the eye socket broke and the left eye popped out and hung by the optic nerve. The man was out.
It took a lot of willpower on Marco’s side not to finish the job.
At that same instant the alarms went off in the house and its surroundings. Major Allen had set them off from the operation
s room when he saw what was amiss. On the dock, discarded on the decking, was a fly rod. Not in a million years would an experienced angler leave his gear abandoned that way, much less a guide. It meant that one or both of the people on the skiff were assailants. He hit the alarm and headed for his car. The noise brought M&M back to his senses and he realized that he was still alive. He got up using the wall as support and hopped out the door to see armed men running all over the place and then Luigi, who grabbed him and threw him back into his room, cut his bonds, and told him to stay put. He watched Luigi head up the stairs of the main house, and then nothing. The alarms were shut down and an eerie silence took over the place; only the occasional sob from Matilde punctuated the stillness.
A few seconds later Amiable Manning and Joseph Delany entered with guns in hand looking around and finding nothing. Jose came out of the staff quarters in his shorts, also holding a gun. Now there was an army of armed people looking for a target, saw nothing and heard nothing. A few seconds later Luigi shouted that he and Marco were coming out so they wouldn’t get shot by mistake. Everyone was looking at the main house as the two men half carried and half dragged another man to the terrace. They set him down on the floor and instantly were surrounded by Jose, Delany and Manning. They all watched the unconscious man and realized that they were looking at the elusive assassin that had been their quest for so long. Everyone was quiet. Suddenly Amiable Manning squatted down, grabbed the dangling eye, gave it a good yank and tossed it into a flower bed.
“That’s for Ana,” he said and walked to the guest quarters to see what had happened to M&M, leaving the others amazed at what just happened.
“Did you see that,” asked Delany in general. “This guy of all people…”
Manning found M&M in his room, sitting on the bed rubbing the back of his head where Testa had knocked him with the knife. M&M told Amiable of the attack and he ran out to tell the others about Pete. In seconds, Luigi and Jose were running to the skiff. They took with them powerful lanterns and headed off in the direction that M&M had indicated the attack had taken place. They searched up and down the mangroves for an hour but found no trace of Pete. When they came back, disappointed and low on gas, it was Marco who told them that Pete was at Sarasota Memorial, where a couple of crab fishermen had taken him after they found him kneeling on a clam bed with the spear sticking out of his shoulder. It had been touch and go for a while but he was going to pull through. Marco had arranged for a private room and the best trauma doctor in the hospital to care for him, but the ER had done a great job and now Pete was resting in IC under the constant care of a private nurse.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
They were all discussing the event, including Patricia, who was now dressed in T-shirt and shorts and joined them around the unconscious priest.
“He has no balls,” said Patricia
“I wouldn’t say that,” answered Luigi, “it takes a lot of cojones to invade a property as well guarded as this one.”
“I mean he has no balls…literally. As a matter of fact he has nothing there!” exclaimed Patricia.
Marco pulled the man’s shorts down to find what looked like a deformed, scarred vagina between the powerful legs. Testa’s sacrificial mutilation was there for all to see.
Major Allen arrived with reinforcements and left them at the perimeter while he joined the others around the Cyclops who remained unconscious. He had nothing to say. It was obvious that at some stage the man had overpowered the skiff and taken over, using it as a perfect subterfuge to invade the house. It was impossible, he thought, to make something perfectly impregnable to a decided assailant. Sooner or later a chink is found in the armor and the whole thing falls apart. It was a known truism of his trade; a hard one to swallow but true anyway.
At that moment Matilde came to them, discreetly knocked on the door and inquired, “How many for dinner?”
Minutes later Patricia was on the phone with Francisco, Marco was on the phone with Ernie and Ian Carlo, Delany was reporting to the director of the FBI, and Manning was consoling M&M, who felt violated by the events of the day. How was it possible that he’d lost the giant tarpon?
Testa was placed in the custody of the FBI and flown directly to a special holding facility outside of Denver, Colorado, where he would be interrogated by specialists about the crimes for which he was accused. He was being held under the Title VIII Patriot Act, which did not require that he receive all the benefits of US Criminal Law and which would subject him to indefinite imprisonment without a trial. Even though Testa was a US citizen, his use of several passports of various nationalities gave the FBI time and leeway to interrogate Testa at their leisure in the hopes of having him compromise Cardinal Jean Dupree as the intellectual author of the crimes committed by him. The monsignor had been given primary care in Sarasota and then in Denver, though not much could be done for him. He would be a one eyed demon for the rest of his life.
M&M made sure that the cardinal received the news of Testa’s capture and imprisonment with rich abundance of detail and relish. He also made sure that everyone in the Holy See received a full account of the monsignor’s criminal activities, capture, and detainment, but without mentioning the cardinal directly as it could be counter-productive. Better to let the church bureaucracy reach their own conclusions.
Ian Carlo and Ernie decided to go with Samuel to Sarasota immediately and Francisco had told Patricia that he would be there as soon as he could arrange a flight, but she told him that the Bombardier would be on its way in an hour so that Francisco should be at the airport in about six hours. By tomorrow they would all be there. Agent Delany and Amiable Manning were on their way to their respective headquarters but M&M was invited to stay. He would be very valuable in what the Carducci were planning to do.
The following day was a write-off in regards to meetings because the police were in and out of the house all day, taking statements, and photos of the netting from where Testa had stalked the house, and of the abandoned kayak. These were the secondary details after the CSU had examined to exhaustion the main crime scene – which was the bedroom. The group stayed together but couldn’t really talk about business. The meeting with the Carducci friends and family was set for noon of the following day so as to have lunch and start discussing their plans. It gave everyone a bit of down time to rest and enjoy a swim. Marco, Patricia, and Luigi had gone to visit Pete at the hospital and found him well enough to get a full account of what had happened. They told him that Major Allen’s people had found the netting in the mangroves where Testa had been hiding, probably for a couple of days. Now they had a complete picture of the resourcefulness and audacity of the priest. No wonder the cardinal held the man in such high regard. It would be a terrible loss for the elevated prelate not to have such an efficient weapon at his disposal.
His Eminence was having breakfast at his favorite café when a priest brought him the urgent dispatch with the news about the capture of Enrico Testa while attempting to kill the American businessman Marco Carducci. Interpol wanted an audience with his eminence at his earliest convenience and so did a special attaché of the US Embassy to the Vatican. Dupree did not care much about these but he knew and dreaded that His Holiness would want to see him in the course of the day. Lying to him was practically impossible. Dupree didn’t really believe in God, much less in the God portrayed by the Judeo-Christian religions, but he fervently believed in the Catholic Church. He held it as the only true form of governance that could save humanity from itself by fostering a re-distribution of wealth, and he had dedicated his life to achieve that lofty goal. Now, this damn priest had gone off the rails and jeopardized everything. He had to think and maybe even pray, to whatever, in order to save something of his work. There were powerful people to whom he could reach, not all was lost. He still could save this. He finished his brioche and capucho and headed for his office at the IOR.
Within hours several high-ranking liberal politicians were ranting about Testa’s human rights a
nd a powerful law firm out of Chicago was presenting every form of relief petitions and habeas corpus to inconsequential courts, because if there has ever been an ironclad law in the US it’s the Patriot Act. Testa was in the seventh circle of hell and nothing short of a presidential pardon would get him out of there. The assassination of a US senator and a high-ranking bureaucrat were acts of terrorism, period. The murders of others, while not government officials, were piled on to the charges because they were considered an overall terrorist conspiracy and carried more substantial evidence, such as testimonial witnesses and DNA results together with CSU reports from the different crime scenes. By design the attacks on Marco Carducci, including this last one at which Testa was captured, were minimized or didn’t appear at all – such as the bombing of the Lear and the destruction of the Toscana.
While there was alarm about the vulnerability of such well-guarded places as the Toscana and the Sarasota house, there was also relief that the author of those attacks whose ability would be difficult to match, was out of the picture. Yet none of those present underestimated the persistence of the real enemies, the cardinal, Meredith, Humphrey Houghton, and the cadre of politicians that helped them. Francisco and Ernie were long in the battle with these people and knew that the war was yet to be won. Marco and Patricia were new blood to the ranks and their contributions were already felt within the extended influence of The Board.
The Carducci Convergence Page 33